How does a man have self-esteem when he’s barely allowed to admit that his body contains testerone? “Vanity” and “positive self-image” have been assigned as the male and female definitions of the same thing. Woman, though, musn’t admit a desire or need for man. So, everyone’s alone: the man tired of rejection and the woman who won’t relinquish the first-right to reject. He’s gone from being what he thinks she wants to what he knows he is, but still hopes it’s what she wants. (The faith weakens, but it never dies.) He stops pursuing and waits for her to stop waiting for him. So, they’re both alone. Who’s wait is more significant? Less impatient? Who concedes the need?

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It’s easy enough living alone, but I’m not after convenience. It’s easy to do nothing about it, to insulate my hermitage with books and movies and music, to seal in the desperation that erodes my patience. Eventually, I will love myself, but I don’t know if I can wait that long for someone to love me. (Who else is saying that? I’m not the first.) Or am I waiting on my own ability to love someone else? waiting is waiting. It’s still inaction. What action’s to be taken? Desperation motivates but offers tricks for ideas. I don’t do tricks. There’s nothing to be gained fooling someone; I’m the guinea pig I proved that on. Between patience and desperation is the life I live. It’s not the happiest of media, but it’s easy, and it’s almost comfortable.

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As long as I can’t live with myself, I will be lonely. My own company is more than tolerable, but impatience craves others, to either fill that gap between me or mask it like a tiger trap. The craving demands more effort than I am willing to put out for it. Or I’d rather just hang out with myself. I wouldn’t mind you coming over, but it will take an invitation to get me out. I have more fun in my own habitat. Lonely is not something I have to be anymore than unhappy. Easily said. Who doesn’t know that? Knowing is worth very little to the heart. The dumbest thing I did was to think when I was in love. Nothing could have confused me more thoroughly. I didn’t trust thought, but I had no instinct in love, so I couldn’t trust that, either. I don’t doubt that I was in love, though I’d never known love, but it was motivated by loneliness. I wanted to be not-alone before I wanted love. As long as I don’t love myself I’ll be looking for soemone to do it for me. It might as well be me.

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The molding begins before self-consciousness. It’s too late after that–parents,family,teachers, media tell us who we are. How wrong they all were, but how were we to know? How are we to know? and, knowing, how do we reclaim our identities? Who, knowing, doesn’t even bother trying? and who cares if they do? Indoctrination by inundation is hard to overcome. Is it meant to be overcome? Is it worth overcoming? Really: I want to know, because I’ve tried and not-tried: The one is impossible and the other is insufferable. The way in and the way out are the same to me, but I don’t know where it is. It’s a heart thing I’m trying to figure out. Figure out! Isn’t that what got me into that mess? I don’t want what I was raised to want. I tried to, too many times. I know it’s not the real me, which I’ve denied to myself for much of my life. I’m confident–and saddened–that you know what I’m saying. You also know how hard it is to love yourself: Take a leap at it, grind out an excruciating progress, fall back breathless and let the old you, the American Dream you, enfold you again. This time around I have staying power. That amounts to patience in the face of urgency. I’d rather no fight at all.

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I’m afraid to get closer than a flirt, but the prospect excites me. At least I can imagine it would. I want it but have no gauge of my readiness for it. Can I help but be shy about it? Can I help but try again? I will allow myself the reticence and the hope alike and vibrate to the midline–me natural. I want to not want so much as I’ve been asking for–rather, I just don’t want to ask for it (or for anything). When I can give is when I can receive. How do I do that? I want to believe that I’ve grown from all this, but I’m afraid to test it. Time will ace it–that’s me saying it, and even believing it, but compliance is in the hands of my patience, whose grasp is indifferent.

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Not easily led and much too proud to follow leaves me firmly planted on the outside. So much is artificial that I can hardly find what isn’t and risk becoming artificial by sheer immersion. Can I even give in to that again? Is there a new version of it–like a germ–that can catch me unawares? that offers me the near-enough-perfect simulacrum of what I think I want in a form I have yet to learn to defend myself against? There’s an American Dream for every demographic. The next one is as false as the others in which I’ve been ensnared. In my caution I might miss what’s real, cow myself out of accepting what I need when it’s offered. How do I open the door just far enough to let only the right one in? If I could trust patience and hope I would just leave it unlocked.

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My interpreter’s hat has a tendency to fall over an eye or two. Bias is nothing to be ashamed of or conquer. But I want this done by the end of the year, and I don’t have the patience for all the prideful rationale the delusions float on. I have plenty of room for the truth, but the truth doesn’t always have dibs on the space. My truths are shy and non-assertive, as naked as the emperor but fully aware of it. Maybe they don’t mind that much, but I do. They are not embarrassed but embarrassing. Objectivity is still hard to find, but it has never been more visible. The capture is the thing: I know when I’ve caught my prey, but I don’t know how. Consistency is not also ensnared. I catch truths I don’t understand and let them go for now. The rest is meager nourishment, but enough till the next meal. The rules imposed on me over Herself are not metaphorical. They’re real and sometimes hard to take. Accepting them is the only thing I ask of myself. I succeed, I fail. Neither praising nor lamenting either outcome is objectivity, where understanding begins.